Chinese President Xi Jinping finally spoke with Zelensky today. But he only did so as a feint to help Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself.
Yet everyone is reacting as if Xi offered Zelensky a credible peace plan. A plan, that is, that will make Ukraine’s looming counteroffensive unnecessary. But nothing could be further from the truth.
China’s Xi speaks with Zelensky
Xi merely offered to send Chinese representatives to Ukraine to hold talks. You’d think it never occurred to the US, France, or any other country to do so.
In truth, Xi has China playing for Russia the Axis role Japan played for Germany during WWII. Hell, if it were up to Xi, Russia would have its way with Ukraine and every other former Soviet satellite state.
But this role has Xi even perverting China’s celebrated Panda diplomacy. His state media are propagating that Americans abuse Pandas because they hate China. But the Russians treat them well because they respect China.
Xi calls Zelensky at last. But why now?
In any event, Xi had an ulterior motive. He finally condescended to speak with Zelensky today to distract world attention. Because he wanted to quell the outrage his ambassador to France caused earlier this week.
You see, that “wolf warrior” let the cat out of the bag. He said former Soviet countries have no “effective status in international law.” In other words, he parroted Putin’s claim that “Ukraine is not a real country”…
Except that what this ambassador said about Ukraine is consistent with how Xi has treated Ukraine from day one. For example, Putin has decreed that Russians shall not call his war a war. And Xi is so committed to parroting Putin’s propaganda that he, too, abides by this decree.
But how can Xi broker peace when he refuses even to acknowledge Putin’s war? Especially when Putin’s forces are committing so many open and notorious war crimes.
Not to mention that Xi is vested in seeing Putin reclaim Ukraine (or much of it). After all, Putin is providing a dress rehearsal for his plan to reclaim Taiwan.
So it’s laughable that anyone is taking Xi seriously. He’s pretending he wants to end Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine. All the while, he’s threatening his own genocidal invasion of Taiwan.
That’s why he spoke with Zelensky only as a cynical feint.